A social media marketing plan is the foundation that you build your campaign around. Very basic, right? Yes. However, more and more it’s becoming a vital step that all too often gets overlooked. When speaking with entrepreneurs and small-to-medium size business leaders, it appears that most are in a get-the-content-live-and-fast approach, and they’re missing the strategy. Fast is great. The caveat to that is you must have some sort of direction to your campaign. Something like a strategy.
Most marketers, dare I write, don’t have a documented strategy {gasp}. It’s true! Documenting a strategy is a proven element that works. The Content Marketing Institute (CMI) reports that marketers with a documented content strategy are:
- far more likely to consider themselves effective at content marketing,
- far less challenged with every aspect of content marketing,
- generally more likely to consider themselves more effective with every tactic and social media channel
- able to justify a higher percentage of the marketing budget to be spent on content marketing
Documenting your social media strategy isn’t necessarily the end all be all, but it’s a great place to start. CMI states that those with a documented content strategy are less challenged with every aspect of content marketing, those without a content strategy are far more challenged with getting executive buy-in, which is a key roadblock to content marketing success. Creating a business case is key to getting buy-in.
When it comes to social media there are 12 easy steps that should be included within your strategy for getting your content published and promoted.
Step 1 – Research and know your audience
Step 2 – Pick you social platform
Step 3 – Pick your KPIs
Step 4 – Write a social media playbook
Step 5 – Align your company around your plan
Step 6 – Schedule an hour each week to schedule posts
Step 7 – Create a content bank
Step 8 – Post relevant content
Step 9 – Treat all social channels separately
Step 10 – Assign someone as a customer service representative
Step 11 – Reporting
Step 12 – Reanalyze
Click the infographic below to enlarge
